Dark Seed II: A Nightmare of Flesh and Metal
by James Barker 2.0
Summary: A novelization of the 90s adventure game Dark Seed II. A year has passed since Mike Dawson foiled the plans of a nightmarish alien race to conquer our world. Returning to his childhood home, he hopes to regain his sanity. But not all is well as his high school girlfriend is found murdered and all signs point to him. And to make matters worse, the aliens are returning.


**DARK SEED II: A Nightmare of Flesh and Metal**

A novelization by James Barker

**PROLOGUE**

Chasing Shadows

The dream began the way it always did.

I find myself running, desperately running from what I cannot possibly begin to describe. My footsteps rattle loudly against the metal floor, echoing throughout the dark, alien corridor that stretches out before me, twisting and turning like Daedalus' labyrinth with its own Minotaur hot on my trail. My lungs feel as if they're about to explode after running for God knows how long.

I consider giving up. What's the point? I've fought them for so long, and it's cost me so much.

My job. My life. My sanity.

Maybe this was their plan all along. Prod me and beat me and humiliate me until it was all too much to bear. I had uncovered their plot for their invasion into our world, and it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they'd just let me walk away. Nor should it have surprised me that they'd choose to make me suffer for interfering with their plans. I've seen what they're capable of, how powerful and all reaching they are. They could kill me anytime they wanted, but they made their contempt for me clear when they chose to torment me over the last year.

Draw it out before inflicting the killing blow when I'm at my most vulnerable. Bloodied, shaking, babbling like a madman. Oh, yes. Only when they've crushed me in both spirit and body will they put me out of my suffering.

I should stop running and stand my ground. Face the unseen monstrosity that stalks me and fight it. I'd surely die in the process, but would it be so bad at this point? Why keep running after all the horrors I've seen, the things I've done?

And then I hear her, and I swear that I can feel my heart skip a beat.

"Mike! Help me, please!"

"Rita?" I choke out, quickening my pace as I continue on my route through the corridor. As much as I feel my body beg me to stop and rest, I press on with greater determination. "Rita, where are you?"

So close. She sounded so close.

I take a sharp right at a fork when I hear her blood curdling screams and the sound of what can only be described as wet cloth being ripped apart with wild ferocity.

"Mike! Oh, God...Mike, they're hurting me! Make them stop! Please!"

The very corridor itself seems to shift and close in on me with a mind of its own. I grit my teeth as pain floods through me, sweat pouring down my face with every step I take as I race onward on the desperate hope that I can save her from them.

"Mike?"

For a second, I almost stop in place. All the hope and reason to live that had just coursed through me found itself replaced by unrelenting horror and revulsion as a face began to form within the darkness of this unnatural hell...if only there were a body to come with the face. Floating listlessly through the air was the head of Rita, her face wracked in an expression of pure anguish as tears ran down her pale cheeks. Her normally flowing brunette hair was wild and unkempt, caked with what I can only presume to be blood. The flesh of her neck was severed and bloody.

"Rita..." I gasped breathlessly, the words stuck in my throat as I reached out with trembling hands towards her.

"Help me, Mike," she pleaded. But her words were cut off by howls of agony as her head began to violently shake, eyes bulging in my direction, almost begging me to end her suffering. My attempts to reach her were further halted when, to my horror, I watched helplessly as her very skin began to melt away, revealing the bone and sinew that lied beneath as the flesh of burning flesh assaulted my nostrils. "Mike, please!"

Had it not been for the roar of the alien Minotaur behind me, I don't think I would have been unable to break my attention away from the horrific sight before me and concentrate on fleeing for my life. Hastily shoving the mangled visage of Rita to the back of my mind, I continued sprinting towards the only means of escape from this place:

The portal.

Another couple of turns later and I hear the thing roar again, sending a chill running down my spine that I can't seem to shake. If I were to even try to describe the sound, the best I could come up with is that it is unlike anything you'd hear from any normal animal in our world. Against my better judgment, I peek over my shoulder to get a glimpse of my pursuer...only to feel as if a bomb has gone off inside my skull as my brain desperately tries to make sense of what it has seen.

Crying out in pain, I tear myself away from it and return my focus to the maze before me. And that's when I see it. The portal stands at the end of the corridor, my one way ticket out of this hellhole so close and yet so far. But as I close in on it, I realize something isn't right. The surface of the portal ripples like water and I'm greeted with my reflection, but it wasn't. Whoever - whatever - this thing was, it looked the part, from the mustache to the brown coat. It stared at me with wide eyed curiosity, watching me curiously before smiling darkly.

And as mysteriously as my doppelganger had appeared, it soon began to...shift. It gripped its head as its mouth - my mouth - stretched inhumanly wide, row after row of extra teeth in places where there shouldn't be filling its maw like some kind of horrific human/shark hybrid. Skin color shifted to an almost rotting grey as horns sprouted painfully from the crown of its head, ripping free from their fleshy prison while its very body began to expand and stretch its copy of my clothing to the breaking point. The thing that had previously been wearing my very likeness now stood before me in its purest form.

A demon.

And as with every dream, I found myself enveloped by an overwhelming sense of helplessness. I drop to my knees and scream as the realization dawns on me.

I can never escape from this nightmare.


End file.
